The Fiction Games

Chapter Two - The Training Center

Rick Grimes found Michonne jarring him awake. He shot up from his mattress, expecting a herd of walkers outside his bedroom. Michonne's presses against his chest, silently calming him in order for him to evaluate his new location.

"Why didn't you wake me?" He said, groggily. "I had watch until morning."

"Couldn't sleep either way," she mumbled. 

"Hershel?"

Michonne jerked her head sideways, and Rick could hear the faint snores of the one-legged farmer. Rick swiveled his feet to the marble floor. He slept in a plain white shirt and jeans he discovered in the closet, as his formal attire in Atlanta.

"Training is soon," she said. "Better eat something."

Never did the prison group have this much food since their world went to hell. By this time of day, at least an hour before their departure into the training center, chefs whisked away in the kitchen, laying a buffet of delicacies for the tributes.

As if seeing food for the first time, the sheriff lost his breath in a tornado of vibrant entrees. Eggs cooked in several styles, smoking ham, turkey sausage, waffles and pancakes lathered in butter, and a plate of ripe fruit. Michonne wrinkled her nose, the bizarre scent unfathomable in correlation to the meal, but she subsided the foulness to satisfy her hunger. Without an exchange of words, they sat down and ate food that reminded them of a time before drooling freaks roamed the earth, where they paid for cuisines of this quality.

Whether it was nerves or a flood of memories rushing in their mind, Rick and Michonne's hunger strike diminished. Training was at least ten minutes away.

"What's our plan?" Michonne spoke lowly. 

"What do you mean?" Rick said. "We train. We fight. We get out of here."

"How do we even know they'll let us leave if we win?"

"I don't. These people seem to have their morality, more or less. We just have to go on their word."

"Yeah, because we know a lot of people who do."

Rick stroke his beard. He has certainly met enough people who betrayed him in the past. Are these people any different? He wiped the corners of his mouth and said, "Focus on winning. My family is counting on me. Carl. Judith. I promised Carl I'd never leave again, and look what happens."

"Daryl, Glenn, and Maggie will protect them. And if the Governor turns up again, there won't be a problem. He killed his entire army."

Rick wished that comforted him.

An woman appeared in the doorway, holding black training gear. "Please wear these upon your arrival to the training center."

Michonne's eyes narrowed to slits. "But I think we're in more danger."

_____________________________________________________

 "The training center is not for picking fights, it's about assessing your skills that are necessary in the arena. You will face environments, creatures, and events that seem strange to a particular tribute, but normal to another," announced the instructor. "Allies are always useful when encountering abrasive situations, but remember, only one pair of tributes survive the Games. Use this time wisely. In two days, you will share your abilities to the Fanmakers, who will rank you accordingly. Dismissed."

Twenty-four tributes divided into individuals. Different stations propped themselves like small survival booths, displaying tent-making, fire-starting, and food-gathering requirements. Tributes from the Caribbean District were less cooperative on finding a station to start.

Elizabeth Turner murmured to herself, "I thought I was finished with rum-soaked, wobbly-legged, pirates."

"Love, the stations await," Jack Sparrow said whimsically, arms flailing as though the air around him turned to wisps of smoke he could decipher with flicks of his wrists. "Games are almost upon us."

He strolled through the gallery of booths, before settling his gaze half-hearted. Elizabeth, lips pursed and shoulders stern, wheeled Jack around. Caught off guard, he nearly planted face down. "If you weren't busy stealing rum from the kitchen, you would have been sober enough to actually train."

"Haven't you learned already, Miss Turner?" He smiled with his yellow teeth. From his shirt, he whipped a small container with the substance. "You see, rum, though you make think perplexes the mind, however, it enhances it. No pirate would be who they are without it. And I thought I was finished with unbearable, whiny wenches like yourself."

Elizabeth's cheeks flustered, but she managed a grin. Jack was a charmer.

"Ah, over there. An ally."

He was pointing-- or motioning, rather--to a couple examining the barracks of weaponry. Some weapons Jack and Elizabeth haven't seen before. The woman was black-skinned, with locks the same as Jack, and a man who looked as though he haven't had a drink in years.

Jack stumbled over to the barracks with Elizabeth close behind. Elizabeth recognized them from the ceremony yesterday. They were the ones stained in what appeared to be layers of blood and flesh. The thought of being allies terrified her.

The black woman was holding a blade and admiring the thin, slick details. Jack found the sword different to his swashbuckler on the Black Pearl, but it seemed to cut through anything with ease. 

"Beauty, that one is," Jack said. The lady glared at him. "I haven't seen anything like it." He grabbed the handle of a sword and swished it through the air. The woman stepped back, but did not lower her weapon.

"Apologies, miss," he said. He pushed aside his dreaded hair and bowed. "Captain Jack Sparrow. Might I ask who you are?"

The man, with a pistol years more advanced than Jack's flintlock, cleared his throat, "Do we have a problem here?"

Jack stared at the gun, "No. Just making acquaintance with one another, that's all."

"There's no acquaintance we need to get involved in," the man said. "This game is too short to start alliances."

"Understandable," Jack said. "Let me get out of your hair, preferably yours."

His eyes didn't move from that gun. It was shiny, glittering in the dank light. Why didn't he have one of those? Jack placed his sword back on the rack then departed with the smirking Elizabeth at his side.

"Certainly we could've picked less hostile allies," she said.

"I blame the rum," Jack muttered.